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Help Slashdot Test Our New Data Center

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the it-seems-like-only-yesterday dept.

After many years of living in California, Slashdot is preparing to move to a new data center in Chicago, and we need your help. We have our new site running a dump of our database from a few days ago. You can hit it at beta.slashdot.org. Please go there, post comments, submit stories, and do whatever you do normally. Or maybe abnormally — run crawlers, write poll spamming robots or something. If you find any crazy issues, please submit them to our sourceforge tracker. If you're curious, the new system features 18 2x quad-core 2.3 GHz webservers each with 8 gigs of RAM, and 4 quad-core 2.3 GHz databases with 16 gigs of RAM.

48 of 308 comments (clear)

  1. well done slashdot by nih · · Score: 5, Funny

    it's working gre

    --
    I'm a rabbit startled by the headlights of life :(
  2. Wow...all that computer power! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Wow...all that power just to push a few kilobytes of text to my computer.

    1. Re:Wow...all that computer power! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, with a mysql and perl combination... it's not hard to see why they need all that power.

  3. Obligitory by BluffBlank · · Score: 5, Funny

    But does it run linux?

    1. Re:Obligitory by brxndxn · · Score: 3, Funny

      Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!

      --
      --- We need more Ron Paul!
    2. Re:Obligitory by krgallagher · · Score: 4, Interesting
      "But does it run linux?"

      I know that was meant to be a joke, but that is my question. What is the OS? What is the Database engine? What is the web server? Are you using a load balancer? Details! I want details!

      --

      Insert Generic Sig Here:

    3. Re:Obligitory by Hatta · · Score: 5, Informative

      iblis% sudo nmap -A -T4 beta.slashdot.org

      Starting Nmap 4.53 ( http://insecure.org/ ) at 2008-05-23 15:00 CDT
      SCRIPT ENGINE: rpcinfo.nse is not a file.
      SCRIPT ENGINE: Aborting script scan.
      Interesting ports on beta.slashdot.org (216.34.181.45):
      Not shown: 1704 closed ports
      PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
      21/tcp open tcpwrapped
      25/tcp filtered smtp
      80/tcp open http Apache httpd 1.3.41 ((Unix) mod_perl/1.31-rc4)
      135/tcp filtered msrpc
      136/tcp filtered profile
      137/tcp filtered netbios-ns
      138/tcp filtered netbios-dgm
      139/tcp filtered netbios-ssn
      443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 1.3.41 ((Unix) mod_perl/1.31-rc4)
      445/tcp filtered microsoft-ds
      Device type: general purpose
      Running (JUST GUESSING) : OpenBSD 4.X (91%)
      Aggressive OS guesses: OpenBSD 4.1 (x86) (91%), OpenBSD 4.0 - 4.2 (90%), OpenBSD 4.0 (88%), OpenBSD 4.0 (x86) (86%)
      No exact OS matches for host (test conditions non-ideal).
      Network Distance: 10 hops

      TRACEROUTE (using port 21/tcp)
      HOP RTT ADDRESS
      1 0.25 beta.slashdot.org (216.34.181.45)

      OS and Service detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at http://insecure.org/nmap/submit/ .
      Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 32.605 seconds


      Looks like they're running OpenBSD of some sort.
      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    4. Re:Obligitory by moderatorrater · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's impossible. I thought BSD was dead, or at least dying.

    5. Re:Obligitory by livingdeadline · · Score: 4, Informative

      Netcraft thinks it's an F5 BIG-IP device, which probably means that they've got a big, fancy load balancer. If my memory doesn't fail me, F5's appliance OS is BSD based.

    6. Re:Obligitory by Schemat1c · · Score: 3, Funny

      Did you read the history of Slashdot when it hit 10 year anniversary mark? I think someone should go read and stop asking silly questions. Whoosh!
      --

      "Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
  4. oh yeah by stoolpigeon · · Score: 5, Funny

    my cowboy neal bot has already gained complete control of all survey functionality.
     
    A Natalie Portman statue and a 10 gallon tub of hot grits or I wont give control back. Oh - and I want the ponies theme back. Permanently.

    --
    It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
  5. Abnormally? by FooAtWFU · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Run abnormally? So, throw a few of these out there?

    ab -n 10000 -c 10 http://beta.slashdot.org/
    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
    1. Re:Abnormally? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      So it was really a typo: Run ab normally.

    2. Re:Abnormally? by FooAtWFU · · Score: 4, Informative

      Apache benchmarker. If you have the right packages installed (e.g. 'apache2-utils' on Debian) it certainly exists on any Linux distro worth its salt.

      --
      The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  6. Tracerouted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    3 fewer hops to 11, latency tripled to 85ms

  7. "dump"... by MadFarmAnimalz · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can't explain it (oh okay, maybe I can) when the database in question contains /. comments and old Jon Katz stories (quite apart from Taco's nicely spelled and eloquent posts), calling it a dump somehow seems appropriate in the more scatological sense of that word...

    --
    Blearf. Blearf, I say.
  8. you're done by amazon10x · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have access to the storm botnet. Should I try to DDoS the new data center?

    1. Re:you're done by idiotwithastick · · Score: 5, Funny

      Alternatively, we could always just try the Slashdot effect.

    2. Re:you're done by Culture20 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Does having your computer be a zombie node equate to "access"? ;-)

  9. new account by altair1230 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I couldn't create a new account on beta.slashdot.org

    1. Re:new account by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Funny, *mine* still works...

  10. I think.... by ForestGrump · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think slashdot slashdotted themselves.

    --
    Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
    1. Re:I think.... by Idbar · · Score: 4, Funny

      They just wanted to coin the term: "recursive slashdotting".

  11. Slashdot hardware specs... by madskyllz · · Score: 5, Funny

    "If you're curious, the new system features 18 2x quad-core 2.3 GHz webservers each with 8 gigs of RAM, and 4 quad-core 2.3 GHz databases with 16 gigs of RAM" What do you mean, "If" ?

    1. Re:Slashdot hardware specs... by Talen317 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Does this mean that "If I'm not curious" the system runs on some other hardware?
      Perhaps an Apple IIe?

      What if I'm curious one day but not curious the other day?
      Will that dramatically affect my user experience?

  12. Seems recursive by linuxwrangler · · Score: 5, Funny

    So let me get this straight. You want us to Slashdot....Slashdot?

    --

    ~~~~~~~
    "You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
    1. Re:Seems recursive by Dachannien · · Score: 5, Funny

      Here's a Coral Cache link, just in case. ;)

  13. Power consumption? by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 5, Interesting

    > If you're curious, the new system features 18 2x quad-core 2.3 GHz webservers each with 8 gigs of RAM, and 4 quad-core 2.3 GHz databases with 16 gigs of RAM.

    What's the power consumption on this set up?

    1. Re:Power consumption? by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Informative

      What's the power consumption on this set up?
      Probably less than you'd expect. Intel's latest line of Quad-core Xeon processors use 45nm fab technology. If these are 2.33GHz "Harpertown" chips, then each chip (not core!) uses only ~50 watts. That means these machines could be running in as little as 150 watts for the dual processor machines, and 250 watts for the quad processor machines. (Though the quad core machines are most likely drawing a lot more power than that for a full RAID array.) Which really isn't too shabby.
      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    2. Re:Power consumption? by hansamurai · · Score: 3, Funny

      Three puppies and a hair from CmdrTaco's head every 108 minutes.

      --
      Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
    3. Re:Power consumption? by zdzichu · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This is /.. If there were 2.33 chips they would write 2.33. 2.3 GHz clearly show it's Barcelona Opteron. They've TDP of 137W (or 74W in case of High Efficiency chips).

      --
      :wq
  14. I'm in downtown Chicago right now by lpangelrob · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you want me to try to walk out with your servers, just post the address. I'll let you know if I'm successful, but odds are you'll know long before then...

    --
    -Rob

    Biblical fiscal responsibility

  15. More info about the hardware? by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    AMD or INTEL?

    What is the raid setup?

    Hardware raid? raid 5? raid 6? raid 50? others?

    SAS? scsi?

    MB chipset?

    How are they linked to each other Dual or more teamed gig-e

    10 gig-e?

    others?

    1. Re:More info about the hardware? by Precision · · Score: 5, Informative

      On the Web servers, the specs are

      Dual Quad Core Intel E5345 with RAID 1 of 2xSATA drives

      On the Database boxes

      Single Quad Core Intel E5345 with RAID 5 of 7xSAS drives w/ a hot spare

      All machines are 2xGigE connected to cabinet switches which are 10G connected to our cores and our Dual 10G uplinks

      --
      - U
    2. Re:More info about the hardware? by felipekk · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah, what version of IIS are they running?

      And SQL 2008 I suppose?

      *hides*

  16. What is the current hardware? by llZENll · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Your FAQ is from 2000 http://slashdot.org/faq/tech.shtml#te050

    1. Re:What is the current hardware? by Odin_Tiger · · Score: 3, Interesting
      http://meta.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/18/1641203

      Slashdot currently has 16 web servers all of which are running Red Hat 9. Two serve static content: javascript, images, and the front page for non logged-in users. Four serve the front page to logged in users. And the remaining ten handle comment pages. All web servers are Rackable 1U servers with 2 Xeon 2.66Ghz processors, 2GB of RAM, and 2x80GB IDE hard drives. The web servers all NFS mount the NFS server, which is a Rackable 2U with 2 Xeon 2.4Ghz processors, 2GB of RAM, and 4x36GB 15K RPM SCSI drives. (CT: Just as a note, we frequently shuffle these 16 servers from one task to another to handle changes in load or performance. Next week's software story will explain in much more detail exactly what we do with those machines. Also as a note- the NFS is read-only, which was really the only safe way to use NFS around 1999 when we started doing it this way.)

      Besides the 16 web servers, we have 7 databases. They currently are all running CentOS 4. They breakdown as follows: 2 Dual Opteron 270's with 16GB RAM, 4x36GB 15K RPM SCSI Drives These are doing multiple-master replication, with one acting as Slashdot's single write-only DB, and the other acting as a reader. We have the ability to swap their functions dynamically at any time, providing an acceptable level of failover.

      2 Dual Opteron 270's with 8GB RAM, 4x36GB 15K RPM SCSI Drives These are Slashdot's reader DBs. Each derives data from a specific master database (listed above). The idea is that we can add more reader databases as we need to scale. These boxes are barely a year old now -- and still are plenty fast for our needs.

      Lastly, we have 3 Quad P3 Xeon 700Mhz with 4GB RAM, 8x36GB 10K RPM SCSI Drives which are sort of our miscellaneous 'other' boxes. They are used to host our accesslog writer, an accesslog reader, and Slashdot's search database. We need this much for accesslogs because moderation and stats require a lot of CPU time for computation.
      --
      Unpleasantries.
  17. Ah, the Data Center robbery center of America! by snarfies · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How soon we forget.

    http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/03/2054208

    WISE choice, Slashdot. Wise choice.

    1. Re:Ah, the Data Center robbery center of America! by hakr89 · · Score: 5, Informative

      They're not being hosted out of CI Host, they're being hosted out of Savvis.

  18. great choice by ILuvRamen · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Nobody should have any sort of datacenter in CA cuz it's too hot and the power to cool it is too expensive. Chicago was a far better choice! Plus it's closer to Wisconsin where I live so the response time will be better. That's even more important ;)

    --
    Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
  19. I'm sure I'm not alone... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "the new system features 18 2x quad-core 2.3 GHz webservers each with 8 gigs of RAM, and 4 quad-core 2.3 GHz databases with 16 gigs of RAM"
    I just got an erection

    1. Re:I'm sure I'm not alone... by StarfishOne · · Score: 4, Funny

      You just gave my mind a way to fast association with "uptime"... ;o

      And to be ahead of obvious replies: has Netcraft confirmed it? :P

  20. Weaker Databases? by TheNinjaroach · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you're curious, the new system features 18 2x quad-core 2.3 GHz webservers each with 8 gigs of RAM, and 4 quad-core 2.3 GHz databases with 16 gigs of RAM. I read this as "two quad-cores per webserver, and a single quad-core per database." Is this correct?

    I was always under the impression that database servers needed more CPU horsepower than webservers.
    --
    I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
  21. Tempus Interruptus! by FurtiveGlancer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Please, kill the 2-minute comment delay timer on beta.slashdot. We really want to test it!

    --
    Invenio via vel creo
  22. Best of luck, by hwyengr · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hopefully it's just downtown and not at 64th and Oakley. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=6436+S+Oakley+Ave,+Chicago,+IL+60636&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=28.611123,60.292969&ie=UTF8&ll=41.780049,-87.680275&spn=0.00656,0.01472&t=k&z=16&layer=c&cbll=41.776747,-87.681011&panoid=R4fqWJEJkVCRco2uu3GK9Q&cbp=1,248.03517600888696,,1,8.383780676689486 Security's pretty tight down there.

  23. Re:Old content by larry+bagina · · Score: 5, Funny

    Those aren't old stories, they're dupes.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  24. Pictures? by Matt+Perry · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Some pictures of the new setup would be great.

    --
    Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
  25. IPv6 please by ptudor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Can you please start listening on a v6 address?